Bring fire and blood with winter
When Robert's Rebellion is won, the songs tell of loyalty, friendship, and the fall of a tyrant. But in the cold North, the truth runs deeper than southern lies.
Eddard Stark has learned that his sister, Lyanna, was not stolen by Rhaegar Targaryen-she fled Winterfell of her own will. Benjen Stark himself helped her escape, long before war and madness consumed the realm. And when Eddard finally reaches the Tower of Joy, he finds not a kidnapped girl but a dying woman-cradling a child born of love, not violence.
Shattered by grief and betrayal, Ned turns his back on the oaths he swore in the Vale. He no longer believes in the honor taught by Jon Arryn, nor in the southern crowns that burn men for pride. He remembers instead the ways of the Kings of Winter, the ancient Stark lords who ruled when the First Men still walked among the gods.
When he rides south no longer as a friend of Robert Baratheon but as a conqueror of his own will, the North rises behind him. The bannermen of the old blood answer his call-not for Robert's Iron Throne, but for Northern freedom. For the first time in three hundred years, the direwolf howls not as a servant of dragons or usurpers, but as a king reborn.
Ned Stark returns from the Tower of Joy with three royal Kingsguard in chains, a sister's body wrapped in silence, and a child whose name must never be spoken: Aegon Targaryen, known to the world as Jon Snow.
In Winterfell, secrets freeze harder than ice, and every choice is paid in blood.
As the South descends into chaos and old powers stir beyond the Wall, the North stands alone once more-ancient, proud, and unbending.
In this world, the wolf does not kneel. The wolf remembers. And Winter comes for the Iron Throne.
